In this photo taken Aug. 21, 2009 and made available Tuesday May 17, 2011, Giant panda Ming Ming eats bamboo leaves at the Xiangjiang Safari Park in Panyu in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province.

Ming Ming, seen at the zoo in London in 1994, has died of old age, Chinese state media say. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Chinese state media say the world’s oldest panda has died at the age of 34.

The Global Times reported that Ming Ming had kidney failure. She had been living at a zoo or preserve in Guangdong province.

The China Panda Protection Center in Sichuan province said in a statement she died May 7, but it was reported only Tuesday in local media. More details about her were not available.

The newspaper said wild pandas live 15 years on average and captive ones 22 years.

Giant pandas are among the world’s most endangered species, with about 1,600 in the wild. More than 300 are in captivity in China, most in a breeding program aimed at boosting the population.

The country also loans pandas to zoos worldwide.

About Loren ColemanLoren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.